Stromboli Streghe

Home

Come inside these pages and meet the women of Stromboli Streghe, who proclaim, “The pen is mightier than the broom.”

Excerpt from The Pen Is Mightier Than the Broom: Memoirs, Stories, and Poems﻿

The Ring

There it was, lying on the maroon velvet bottom of my jewelry box—the opal ring Grandma Jean had given me when I was 10. She was so disappointed in me when it turned up missing a year later that she gave her strand of real pearls to my cousin Jenell, who was two years older. Jenell wore those pearls to her prom and every other formal occasion since, even for her wedding.

Grandma Jean eventually forgave me for losing the ring, but she never gave me another piece of jewelry. I still had her manual typewriter, the one I’d used to type all my college papers. And now here was the ring. Why did I find it today?

I slipped the ring on my finger as I heard Mama calling; the limo was waiting. Mama stood at the foot of the stairs in the black linen dress she’d worn to every funeral she’d attended in the past 10 years. I ran down and held out my hand. She took it and looked into my face, her eyes filling. It was her lap I’d soaked with my tears after confessing the loss of the ring to Grandma Jean.

“It must have been hidden in my jewelry box all these years. Why did I have to find it now?” I asked.

Mama managed a trembling smile. “Maybe it’s her way of saying good-bye.”

--Allyson Denise Walker

﻿

Buy your copy of The Pen Is Mightier Than the Broom: Memoirs, Stories, and Poems